Chapter 2 #2
With a pragmatism born from decades of acquaintance, Benedict answered, “You are unlikely to obey me, and I have never known you to be agreeable for more than five consecutive minutes. It would be foolish to make either a condition… but your honesty, Harriet, can always be counted upon. Even when it is painful to hear.”
Harriet almost smiled. At the last second, she schooled her features into a mask of impassivity.
But he saw it. He saw it and he saw her.
It wasn’t the first time he’d taken note of the fact that she’d become a beautiful woman.
Whether that was in spite of or because of her hoydenish ways he could not say.
But it was the first time he’d looked at her not as an acquaintance of long standing but as a man.
He was seeing not Harriet the girl he’d known for the entirety of her life, but Harriet the woman—whose curvaceous figure and upswept dark hair turned heads whenever she entered a room.
He stepped nearer to her, close enough that he could see the gold flecks hidden in the depths of her brown eyes.
Her eyes widened in surprise, but also in something that might have been unease.
And he liked that he unsettled her in that moment, that his nearness to her prompted some response from her even if it was one of quiet uncertainty.
He didn’t stop until he was close enough that, had he wished to do so, he could have taken her in his arms. But he did nothing, merely stood there, allowing a new awareness to develop between them.
Some things required patient cultivation, after all.
Harriet stepped away. “You have not answered me.”
“I expect you to live at Denham and permit the world to believe we do not hate one another. Beyond that, we may decide matters between us.”
“Separate rooms?”
His gaze held hers. “If that is what you want.” His voice emerged rougher than it ought to have, graveled and deepened by things he had not expected to feel.
“You do not wish to marry me,” she said.
Benedict was silent long enough that she likely regretted the statement. He could see it in the way her gaze strayed from him and the convulsive swallowing as she attempted to stave off tears. It was that which prompted him to answer in what he hoped was a reassuring manner.
“I do not wish to acquire you as my bride through your father’s ruin,” he said at last. “That is not the same thing.”
He heard the slight catch in her breath, saw the way her hands trembled as she clasped them together. Those were vulnerabilities she’d never wish noted. So he turned away.
“You have been reviewing the accounts,” he said.
“I was trying to find a solution… before.”
“So was I,” he admitted.
“And there is none.”
“Not one that can be accomplished before the first… and not one that would have a lasting impact on the sanctity of Alderley.”
Harriet looked again toward the eastern road.
Her thoughts were so obvious she might as well have spoken them aloud.
She could refuse. He would honor the refusal.
But Selby would not honor anything except the terms that benefited him, and too many lives rested upon land her father had placed within his reach.
“I will not be a decorative wife,” she said. “I will not spend my life arranging flowers and waiting for you to tell me which of my opinions may be spoken aloud.”
“I would not survive it if you did,” he said on a bark of disbelieving laughter.
“Benedict.”
“I am serious. I do not expect you to become someone else merely because we are married.” He faced her fully again. “I would not have agreed if that were what I wanted.”
Harriet believed him. That was more frightening than doubt would have been.
“I want the terms in writing,” she said. “My interest in the land, the income and my right to be involved in every decision concerning it.”
“You shall have them.”
“And if we cannot agree?” She challenged him. But it was Harriet. When would she ever do less?
“Then we argue until one of us is persuaded.”
“You mean until I am persuaded.”
“No.” His mouth curved faintly. “Though experience suggests I am usually right.” He said it to goad her. To bring some color back to her cheeks and to restore some sense of normalcy to what had been a very abnormal exchange between them.
“Then experience is about to disappoint you.”
For the first time since he entered, Benedict smiled.
Genuinely and without reservation or caution.
And if he’d been watching her a bit more closely in that moment, he might have seen the way her pupils flared, or caught the slight catch of her breath.
But he wasn’t. He wasn’t taking in that moment because he was thinking of the future.
“Is that a yes?” he asked. It ought to have been a grand proposal but there was not time for such things, for courtship or parties to celebrate a betrothal most would claim was years in the making and entirely to their own credit.
“It is,” Harriet said. “But if you become unbearable, I reserve the right to remind you that this was your mother’s idea.”
“I expect she will remind us both.” The practical matters were settled.
In a matter of weeks, perhaps less, she would be his wife.
His house would become hers. The distance between them, which had always allowed one or the other of them to leave when their arguments became too heated or the other’s presence too unsettling, would disappear.
Benedict extended his hand. Harriet looked at it before placing hers in his.
His fingers closed around hers. The touch was proper and should have meant nothing. Instead, awareness moved through him with such force that he nearly pulled away.
Harriet felt it too. He saw the shock of it flash across her face before he released her.
Neither mentioned it. But neither would forget it, either.